The corporation in environmental sociology


JP Sapinski, Université de Moncton

In this presentation, I argue that environmental sociologists ought to consider the corporation as a social institution foundational to their work. Corporations – in the plural – are an everyday topic of discussion and criticism, and a lot of attention is paid to them in the media and popular discourse. Activists also certainly know how to target specific corporations to great effect. Yet, is the corporation – in the singular – really a core element of environmental sociological analysis? A quick survey of publications in environmental sociology is informative. In the two main journals in environmental sociology, Society and Natural Resources and Environmental Sociology , a search for the keyword “corporation” (plural and singular) in the abstracts of papers published between 2012 and 2023 returns respectively seven out 1184 articles for the former, and four out 337 articles for the latter. The latest editions of some key textbooks of the discipline do acknowledge corporations as key actors of environmental destruction. Yet, their coverage of the corporation as a topic of environmental sociological inquiry varies substantially. I will argue that, contrary to the minimal attention paid in the discipline, environmental sociology needs to move beyond pointing the finger at corporations for destroying the ecosystems, the soil, the water and the atmosphere we depend on, and produce an actual sociological analysis of the institution behind this destruction There are three reasons to do this : (1) The corporation is the institution that mediates the human-environment metabolic relationship under advanced capitalism; (2) Viewing the corporation as the crucial social institution that it is provides a much better theoretical understanding of the socioecological processes that are the object of environmental sociology; (3) Shedding light on these processes directly supports socio-environmental movements working to stop destruction. I will first give a historical overview of how the corporation became a central institution of the capitalist mode of production. Second, I detail how the corporation mediates human social metabolism. Third, I provide brief remarks on the discourse that corporations have constructed that legitimizes and even glorifies this mediation role. I conclude by discussing how emphasizing the corporation might conversely bring attention to alternative institutions and discourses that foreground a different, non-corporate future.

This paper will be presented at the following session: